Support Maasai kids education!

Here is your chance to sponsor a girl from the Maasai Harmonial project area in secondary school — Only $500 for one year, $250 half a year, $125 a quarter. Primary school uniforms $30; other options listed below.

Primary girls getting uniforms. Kids can`t go to primary school without a uniform.

Several girls in the Maasai Harmonial project area are at risk of an early marriage because they can’t make it into secondary school. In fact, there are no Emburbul girls in the local high school at this time. About 50% of all Tanzanian students of high school entry age fail the national exam that would get them into high school. We have a chance of getting girls into Emanyata Secondary School, which will accept the failed students.

The next Emanyata School session starts in January 2019. If you are interested in sponsoring one of our Emburbul girl students in secondary school please fill out the form below.

These two brave girls are going to a secondary school far away. A school that accepts girls who have failed the National Exam. Fifty percent of children who take the test fail it. Maasai girls are handicapped by poverty and having to learn two languages that are not native to them.

As a Maasai girl at the age of just 12 you are at risk of being forced to marry a man of that may be up to 30 years older than you. You must go through the ritual of female circumcision (FGC) – an excruciating procedure, which is likely to lead to a lifetime of pain and medical problems, if you survive the shock and blood loss. You may be one of several wives and can expect to have at least 5 children, whom you will need to clothe, feed and if at all possible send to school, but with little or no education this will be a lifelong struggle and your daughters will go through the same experience as you.

At age 12, your body is not ready for childbirth. Pregnancy is consistently among the leading causes of death for girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. Girls between the ages of 10 and 14 years are 5 to 7 times more likely to die in childbirth; girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years are twice as likely. Mothers under the age of 18 have a 35% to 55% higher risk of delivering a preterm or low-birthweight infant than mothers older than 19 years. The infant mortality rate is 60% higher when the mother is under the age of 18 years. Data demonstrates that even after surviving the first year, children younger than 5 years had a 28% higher mortality rate in the young mothers cohort. This morbidity and mortality is due to the young mothers’ poor nutrition, physical and emotional immaturity, lack of access to social and reproductive services, and higher risk for infectious diseases.

Population is another consideration in these areas where people are outgrowing their land. On average, women marrying as children have 1.4 more children over their lifetime than if they marry after the age of 18. Combine education with the family planning and birth spacing program we promote, and there is the potential for a significant slowing of population growth. The administrators of the Ngorogoro Conservation Area where they live, have talked about moving some of the Maasai out of the NCA (with nowhere to go) because there are too many people and thus too many cattle competing with the wildlife for grasses.

Education provides pastoralist girls with an understanding of what other options they have in life and the tools to pursue them. PWC (Pastoral Women’s Council) provides the opportunity for girls who would otherwise have no way of attending school to receive an education through sponsorships. Most of these girls are educated at Emanyata Secondary School, which as a boarding school provides a safe environment for learning, away from the pressures to marry young and the risk of early pregnancy – which is used by families as a way to force girls to drop out of school. Emanyata also provides a place to stay during school holidays for those at particularly high risk. PWC also provides the opportunity for girls to talk openly about the negative aspects of Maasai culture such as FGM and help the girls to realise that there are other options.

There is an urgent need to provide more scholarships to educate girls who so desperately want a different future for themselves but have no other means to add one.

Preschool kids learning phonics in their new school provided by the government.

In addition, there is an urgent need to upgrade the education these children are getting. Children 3-5 attend a nearby preschool, where they learn Swahili and counting. They are then eligible to attend a primary boarding school four miles away, but early primary children cannot attend boarding school if they can`t attend to their own needs like washing thir own clothes. And they are too young to travel the four miles on their own, for fear of wild animals, such as Cape buffalo or hyenas. The solution is to build an early primary school close to the village, or to bring in a government-supplied teacher, who requires his or her own house in the village.

We also have one student in medical college, one in veterinary school, and another in wildlife college. We hope to add more as time goes on.

Click on the Donate button below if you want to donate by credit card to support education (school uniforms, building classrooms, health classes, tuition/fees for a girl in school or college, etc) in the Maasai Harmonial Development and Sustainability project area.

If your donation is over $700, and you do not need a tax deduction, more of your donation will be spent on your intended purpose if you wire the money from your bank. Credit card donations take 10% for credit card and processing fees.

Contact us for the Maasai Harmonial Development and Sustainability bank information if you would like to wire the money.

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Mission

To improve the livelihoods and health of the impoverished pastoral people of Emburbul Village and to empower the girls and women of Emburbul to control their own reproduction, their own lives, and their own bodies.

Vision

It is hoped that this mission will allow the people of Emburbal to:

1. Receive guidance to secure successful livelihoods, good health, and, lastly, a sustainable population size so that the Conservation district does not require the Emburbul people to leave the Conservation Area.

2. Receive short-term financial help, only as needed, to secure a sustainable future for the Emburbul people. Except in the case of education, where longer term financial help may be needed.

3. Receive external pro bono professional help that may be needed in areas of water supply/safety or building a school.

4. Become self-sufficient without destroying their culture.

5. Realize the potential of investment of Emburbul’s own resources, including animal husbandry, to secure a better livelihood. For example, swapping out bulls for a hardier breed.

6. Realize the potential of providing education for young men and women to a) improve livelihoods in the village such as animal husbandry or b) externally, such as health care worker or wild life management, so that they can provide for their family.

7. Realize the potential of empowering women to have more control over their own lives and deciding for themselves how many children they bear that would good for their own health and the health of a family - so that they can afford to provide for their basic needs.